Home?

Today i went for a quick run down to the office to get the mail, and I was walking back along the trail in the woods looking at the beautiful colourful leaves and I realised with a shock how normal this feels now to be here.
I feel comfortable with my job and I know the trails and which keys get stuck and the tricks to keep doors open when cleaning... I can laugh with the girls i live with about anything, we all shower with the door open and all use the bathroom at the same time and its okay to walk around in underwear... Its normal when the guys throw grapes out the window at me when driving past or to be fired by my boss several times a day.
I love the people I work with and they are becoming a family as we spend every single minute together.

I guess that when I left everything that I knew on the other side of the world, I couldnt even imagine being so at ease and at home somewhere else and with different people... But as usual God has been so faithful and has created for me a home here.
But at the same time I am so aware that as I love Jesus more, home has less and less to do with where or who is there and more and more to do with the fact that I am at home in Christ, so where He is can be home.

Child's heart

Sometimes I feel like I am still just a little girl pretending that I'm old enough to have a job and a bank account and responsibilities....I feel like a lot of the time I dont know how to respond to people in a way that is good, I dont know how to be tactful or wise, I just want to be loved and told that I'm doing okay. I feel like so much of what I offer to God is messy or dirty or not finished.
As I was thinking about this, I got an image in my heart... it looked sort of like this. So much of what I offer up to God as my best work is just blobs of colour and smears of paint, some places its too thin to cover the canvas well and other place its too much paint and it never dries,... the colours dont go together well and they dont blend at all. Yet when I bring it before God He takes it and puts it in the center of His fridge because I am His child and for some reason He delights in everything I bring Him.
The swing is a symbol of freedom, of child like wonder, of holding nothing back... In the center of all my messiness and colour, I am this girl, laughing in delight as God watches me and smiles.
And in this I find joy...

Seek the quiet places

For 5 months now I've been living in intentional community, where people dont just live together but they really spend time together and ask how people are going and expect an honest answer, where they help eachother out by doing laundry or putting clothes away, little things that make a lot of difference. Right now there are 6 girls sharing a bathroom thats about 2 metres long and wide. And I love it. But I have become so used to this that I dont really know how to be alone and be in the quiet... I only realised this when I moved out of my own room and into a room with Courtney and the next morning we both said that we slept so much better when someone else was there.... or when its my day off and there is no one around and I just dont know how to entertain myself!
And while community and being together is beautiful, I know that I need to be able to be by myself, so I went for a walk in the woods to this little tiny chapel I love and sat in there for a while to pray and to be alone. I didnt like it at first, it was so quiet and I didnt know what to do with that. But after 20 mins or so I felt my heart become more still and be able to rest in that silence.... And I realised that all through history God has been calling His children away to the quiet places to be alone with them. The world is noisy and often we dont hear but when we do and we leave to those places of silence and solitude, it's there that we hear Him speak and see His face more than ever.
God called Moses away to the mountains for weeks at a time, David to the lonely fields with the sheep, Esther to the spacious palace rooms, Gomer out into the wilderness, along with John the baptist and Elisha. He met with Jesus in the hills to pray and with Zechariah in the silence of the temple sanctuary, Gideon in the depths of a wine press... Almost every time that God wanted to speak to His childrem, to tell them something important that He was going to do or that He wanted them to be a part of....He told them in the silence, when they were alone.
And now I have to look at my own life... I want so much to understand God's plan, to know what he is doing, to hear His voice... Yet the silence is something I shy away from, I dont like being there. But I cant help but think that hearing from God and seeking those places of silence and solitude regularly go hand in hand.

Loose Hands

A while back I made a post about my room... this is the sequel.

I made my room beautiful, decorating the walls and the roof with letters and photos and scripture and material... I loved it, even though it was small and shaky and cold.

Then a few days ago my boss told us there would be another girl moving into our apartment and after talking about it we decided that it would work best for me to move out of my room and share with someone down the other end of the hall and let the new girl have her own room.

I was lying in my bed that night asking God why He had given me my own room just for a couple of weeks, I felt sad about taking all my decorations down and moving.... but I felt Him reminding me that I need to hold the things of this world in loose hands, to be prepared to give them up at any moment and to be okay with it because my treasure lies in other places.

All this year He has been uprooting me and moving me around as soon as I become too comfortable with a people group or a place... I know this is no different right now and that when this happens I am being made more dependent on Him which I want so much.

But I also felt Him saying to me, “Oh Aliesha, you just wait to see what I am going to do with this... this will be a good time.”

And I believe Him. I have moved in with a woman named Courtney, she’s from USA and is also doing Outdoor Ed with me... She’s a good friend, I love talking to her and I know that sharing a room will be a blessing for both of us... I’m excited to see what happens!

The one interesting thing could be sharing a tiny bathroom with 6 girls who all need to be ready at the same time in the morning. Not to mention the shower head that is only attached by a coat hanger and the tap which leaks and is going to fall off any day now.... Maintenance, please help!

This is my worship to You

Photography.... capturing a single moment so that those who werent there can experience it, so that I can remember that moment always, so that I am using the creative heart He has put in me... This is my worship.

I've always been told that worship is not just in a church singing.... and i always believed it, but its only been this past year, when I've begun to paint and dance and take photos that I really knew what else it was.
In the last few months I have begun to love photography and experimenting with light and space and time...so i saved up and bought a good camera. And I want to use it to worship, however that may look.

Today it looked like being in awe as I took shots of the mist rising off the lake in the morning. It also looked like throwing leaves up in sheer joy that I am alive and that the world around me is beautiful right now.

“Live simply so that others may simply live.” -Ghandi

I was lying on my bed in my little wooden chalet and the rain was pouring down outside making beautiful noises on the roof. I went to get a sweater out of my bag and I realised that everything I owned in the whole world now fitted into a single suitcase, yet I still had more than enough. I was never needing anything I didn’t have in that bag.

So these past few months, one of the themes that seemed to be in my heart a lot is that of simplicity.

Some of this happened naturally from me having only a suitcase to call my own, but has developed into a whole new way in which I view possessions and money and space.

Over the summer I talked a lot with people about what it looks like to live a simple life, to go with less food, clothes, entertainment, electronics, space etc so there is room for the eternal things like people, silence, compassion, God, the bible, empathy... things like that.

And in my search for what simplicity looks like, I’ve found two very different pictures...

Apparently leading a simple life is now a popular trend, a new consumer interest, something that the media is grabbing onto...this looks a lot like huge empty white rooms in a house, with a single table and flower. It looks like large gardens with only mown grass and piles of rocks stacked up. It looks like having a bare wall with a single canvas of some strange abstract colour scheme on it. It looks like eating at only organic restaurants and drinking herbal tea instead of coffee. It looks like buying a lot of nuts and seeds and wearing loose fitting pants that look they came from India...

The only problem with this, as attractive as it may be, it’s expensive.  And expensive simplicity seems to contradict itself somehow.

The other picture of simplicity I found in Jesus. He travelled a lot and didn’t own much, yet He was never lacking. When He sent His disciples out He instructed them not to take bread or a walking stick or an extra shirt or even money... they were to rely on the hospitality of the church. He ate with other people almost all the time and lived with lots of different people. What He had, He shared and what He didn’t have, He didn’t need.

So for a while now I’ve felt this conviction, this desire to lead a much more simple life.

This goes far beyond simplicity being a fad at the moment, because I honestly didn’t even realize this was a trend until I started looking into it further and saw these heart breaking pictures of massive empty rooms with a small dining set in them and nothing else. It goes much further than that, a deep calling within me to live out the simplicity I see in the gospels.

The article said "Maximise simplicity with this stylish decor"

In saying this, I want so much for people to not think this is a radical idea, a self sacrificing life style that one must embark on...because most people in the world do not even have the luxury of this choice. The idea of choosing to live a simple life is ridiculous, they live simply anyway because they don’t have enough food to think about reducing waste, they don’t have enough clothes to think about which ones they should give away, they don’t have a car to think about using less gas...this is just a way of life. And something in me cringes when I see how arrogantly, as rich people we have grasped onto and are now marketing the idea of simplicity as fashion, as a superior way of life to everyone else, like we have come across something new. No.

Maybe this is different for everyone, but for me simplicity looks a little like this...

It looks like having less clothes so that other people can have enough clothes. What does it matter if we need to wear the same shirt for a few days in a row?

It looks like not eating more than we need so that others have enough food to eat.  How can obesity and starvation be such big problems at the same time?

It looks like sharing cars so that less money is spent on gas. Individualism is choking the beauty of community in many places anyway, not an issue that is helped by us all driving separate cars in the same direction.

It looks like giving away those things that we don’t use all the time, it looks like sharing things like lawn mowers, trailers, port-a-cots. It looks like eating together with people and sharing food and company, it looks like reusing bottles and boxes and bags....

And in no way have I got this sorted. I am seeking after these things and giving things away and living with less...but I feel every day the tension between the consumer, materialistic desires in me (and they sometimes win) and the pull of the humble kingdom where treasure is stored in heaven, not in the basement. It’s a journey. And I long for you to join me. To look at where your treasure lies, to understand the truth that there are enough resources in this world for everyone, they just haven’t been shared well, to think about how your life can begin to bridge that gap.

And may you be...

"May the Lord bless you and keep you.
May He make His face to shine upon you and give you peace.
May you discover the mystery of living in the world and not being of it.
Like Daniel, may the leaders of nations want you in their inner circle of authority because of your divenely given wisdom and insight.
But like Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego, may the leaders of nations hold you in furnace building suspicion because you caim a higher citizenship than any nation can offer and you will always obey God rather than rulers.
Like Joeseph, may your integrity and determination lead the prominent and mighty corporations of the world to place you in seats of power and influence.
But like the apostle Paul in Ephesus, may your prophetic life so call into question the idolatory on which our lives are built, that the unjust economic systems of our world conspire to run you out of town before you undo their mythology.
May the great graduate schools and universities fight over you because they long to have students who commitedly give their lives back to God as an act of worship.
But may they not know what to do with brilliant people, who, rather than identifying themselves with the cultured elites, keep finding their identity with the poor and marginalized.
Like Enoch, may you live long productive lives so connected with God that your transition to the next life will be like taken an unbroken stroll into the next life, surrounded by the presence of the Spirit.
But like Stephen, may you lay down your life in the prime of life, as a peaceful witness to a kingdom the world cannot see.
Like our Lord, may the world love you and despise you.
May you be embraced and rejected.
May you be given all things but keep nothing.
May the mulititudes follow you but may you take up your cross daily.
May you become first by being last and may you become great by being the servant of all.
May you daily give your talents to the Lord prepared to one day be held accountable for how you used this gift of life He has given you.
But like Zaccheaus -refusing to be conformed to this present age, may you wrap up and give back the pound that the principalities and powers will offer you, willing to pay the cost of discipleship.
May your life be lived in the tension between the talents and pounds.
God has called you to hep Him heal the broken world. May the world be both excited and terrified that you are on the way.
And may He who began a good work in you, may He carry it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.
Amen"

-A prayer by Dr Scott Daniels during APU's 2012 Convocation.

Break my heart for what breaks Yours...

This is a prayer that I pray sometimes... I always think its a good idea at the time until He answers and suddenly I find my heart breaking where it didnt before.
This week we had a high school staying at camp, all of the grade 9s came out for a few days and I was given a group of nine 13 year old girls to lead in teamwork/communication games and various activities for a few days, which I wouldnt normally think twice about, I love this type of thing. But I had prayed this prayer just a few days earlier and when I met these girls I saw with open eyes how insecure they were, how desperate they were to be accepted, how fearful they were that they wouldnt. They were searching for who they were, how they fit into this new school... but of course 13 year olds cant express this for what it is (heck, most adults cant even!) and so they were just acting up, being stupid, insulting eachother, pulling eachother down...as a way of trying to understand all this. And it broke my heart. I felt so sad, I wanted so much for them to see that they are beautiful, that they are loved, that it's okay to be confident and be themselves. But I didnt know how to express this for what it is either, so I just felt sad for them. I ran pointless games and empty debriefs and they made jokes and pushed eachother round and neither of us expressed what we really felt and neither of us got anything out of the session.
I went away feeling discouraged... we had a night hike planned for later that night with the same groups and to  be honest I didnt really want to do it. I didnt want to be with those girls and I didnt want to feel broken and burdened for them again, espcecially since last time I felt it had come to nothing. We started our walk through the dark together and I was praying that God would redeem this time, to make it into something beautiful despite myself and my bitterness about being there. Normally with a night hike I would take them into the woods and we walk without lights and play games and I teach them about the eyes and night vision and animals that come out at night and things like that. But tonight after I prayed I felt like that wasnt what God had planned for tonight. So we just walked along the road for a bit, them grateful that they didnt have to go in the bush and get dirty and me wondering why I was taking them this way because it wasnt fun or educational... I got to an open field on the side of the road and I felt God say "Stop here." So we stopped and I told them to lay down on the ground and look at the stars for a while, since in the city you cant see them. For 5 mins we lay in silence. no one said anything (which was unusual enough by this stage for me to know that God was about to do something) Then out of these girls came questions like "Do you think the universe ever ends? How did the stars get there? What will happen when all the stars die? What do you feel when you look at the stars? Do you think God is real? Why are the stars even there...?   I breathed out a prayer of thanks, that He had stilled their hearts and was stirring these questions up in them, and I offered up my words, saying that I didnt know what to say, could He please speak through me. Then with these public school girls, where they're not allowed to speak of God... we talked about creation and glory and the beginning and time and humanity...
Then about boys and food and farting and bad habits. But it was different, God had moved in them and in me.
I learned that being broken for the things that God's heart breaks for is not the end. That's not the point. But that once we reach that place of being unable to love well, of being humbled, of reaching the end of ourselves when we have nothing to offer...  then God will move. And from that place I know it was Him, because it couldnt possibly have been me.

Paddling under Glory

The other day our team finished site prep early and we decided to take the kayaks out on the lake...We ended up being out there under one of the best sunsets I've seen in a long time! I felt so blessed.

Marmite Soldiers.

Today I think that I feel homesick for one of the first times since I left NZ four months ago...
This week I have been sick, but today it was bad enough that my boss sent me home saying he didn't want me working like this, so Im lying on the couch in the empty apartment and I'm lonely.

At home when I am sick I would take a bath and lie on the couch listening to the noises of my family, or mum caring for the kids that come during the day.  My friends would text me from school telling me what was happening there and that they were thinking of me, and I would eat marmite toast or plain salted chips.
I want that.

I know that when it warms up later today and when I start to feel a bit more healthy I will cheer up, but for now I feel homesick and want to eat marmite soldiers.
I have One who never leaves though and as I lie here I am talking to Him like a little kid saying " Papa, I feel yucky and sad, please make me feel better, dont go anywhere..." and I feel His arms around me. I feel His comfort which goes beyond familiar faces and a warm bath and for this I am grateful.

Outdoor Ed Begins

So I've almost completed my Outdoor ed training for the next 5 months of working here...When I did Outdoor Ed for a few weeks in the spring I had no training but was thrown right into working groups and I had no idea what i was doing... I asked questions every three seconds, was constantly confused and felt a bit useless and frustrated a lot of the time. but now that I am being taught all those things I feel like now I can do this well and that I will enjoy it! I am grateful.
I'm also so excited and thankful for the team I am working with... for weeks before this I have been praying for God to create community here and to provide friends... and as usual He is answering in big ways.
We have a really international team with people from Canada,  America, Honduras, Germany and New Zealand.... It has been so fun getting to know them all the past few days and I know that it will be such a great team! There has already been many funny/embarrasing moments (including me accidentally burping right in one of the German guys' face not long after meeting him! He hasnt let that one go... )
and i have kaughed a lot. I look forward to growing closer with them all.

I am conqueror.

The shy little directionally challenged girl from Brightwater exists no longer... she has now been renamed Solo Conqueror of the Canadian Public Transport System. Feel free to call me by my new name.

The sunset over the river where we ate dinner... so beautiful.

I had been by myself for a few days, having just finished summer camp. I was struggling, it was hard to be in the same place but with none of the people I had been with for so long... In the midst of it I felt God calling me to Him, to the quiet places, to the lonely places... and sometimes I went there. And it was beautiful and transforming. But often I just felt sad and my heart became bitter to be here and I couldnt follow God to those places when I felt like that....
So he was gracious enough to say to me that it was okay to leave, to be away from this place and let my heart grow soft toward it again.

 My memories of it as a kid were  wet and cold so it was nice to see it again...

So at 11pm I decided that the next day I was going to the city... I turned up at the bus 8 30 the next morning with no ticket, no idea where I was going or how to get there.... but knowing that today I would embrace adventure and challenge and the unknown! So I caught a bus for a few hours, found a subway and worked that out, caught another bus then wandered around till I found their house! (After leaving a note on the wrong house saying I had arrived but couldnt find them! That will confuse whoever lives there) My friends Greer and Lyndsay from camp were gracious enough to let me stay with them and I am so thankful for them loving me so well.
Then when Greer got home later that evening, the conversation went a bit like this... "Guys i want to do something fun tonight! Lets be spontaneous. Do you want to drive to Niagara and see the falls??"
What?! You can do that??
So we did.... and I LOVED it!  We stood at the top, right where the falls go over and I felt genuine fear, looking at the sheer power that was going over the edge at such an incredible speed. I also felt complete admiration at how anyone can be stupid enough to think that going over these things in a barrel would be even remotely close to a good idea!

Toronto city! I must have looked like such a little kid with my backpack on staring up at these!

I stayed with these girls for a few days and God was whispering to me through these new places and these people... he was softening my heart and when I drove back into camp 4 days later, I was joyful to be there. I was ready for Outdoor Ed.  Now i am ready I think.


"Look, can't you see? Even now God is doing something new!" - Isaiah 43